


Sir, This is My Emotional Support Turtleduck

by BalrogDeMorgoth



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Animals, Attempt at Humor, Azula is a turtleduck, Dysfunctional Family, Dysfunctional Relationships, Emotional Support, Emotional Support Turtleduck, Family, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Fun, Gen, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Pets, Sibling Bonding, Therapy Animal, Ty Lee only date people for their pets, Zuko is a turtleduck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 10:22:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24349456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BalrogDeMorgoth/pseuds/BalrogDeMorgoth
Summary: A stressed out Zuko gets an Emotional Support Turtleduck, which he end up sharing with Azula. The Council learns to live with it.
Relationships: Azula & Ty Lee (Avatar), Azula & Zuko (Avatar), Ty Lee & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 56
Kudos: 508





	Sir, This is My Emotional Support Turtleduck

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, here's another one shot, don't worry, the next chapter of 'The Two Way Puppet' is coming up soon as well as the sequel to 'The Pai Sho Master' due to a big demand for it.
> 
> And remember that my tumblr, 'dragomer' is the easiest place to get a hold of me, i also made a discord, everyone's welcome, here's the invite : https://discord.gg/3MqDB4G
> 
> Anyway hope you like the story ^^.

Zuko wasn't really sure how it had happened... Being the Firelord was just ...so much. Even the smallest of his decisions could save or destroy the lives of hundreds, and more often than not, his decisions led to both, the same regulation that would make a hundred businesses thrive would destroy a hundred others.

It just ate at Zuko, he should have done better, chosen better, _been_ better, no matter how much his advisors and the rest of the royal council insisted that he hadn't made any mistakes, his decision had been correct, and the consequences were perfectly normal...

Zuko just _couldn't_ accept it as 'normal', and he didn't want to either, his people were his responsibility, they trusted him, obeyed him, and had even followed him down the path of peace despite the sacrifices that would come with it. He shouldn't just be content with a half baked decision, as Azula always said 'Good isn't good enough' and oh boy, was he feeling the pressure behind that statement right about now.

But as much as he refused to listen to his advisors, he couldn't deny it had taken its toll on him, especially as it compounded with every other little thing that he had to oversee, the frustration of day to day ruling, an ignored order here, a diplomat bearing grudges there, and another petition to the fire sages to invalidate his reign there, each of them one more drop into his already overflowing cup.

All of that was just so suffocating, completely stressful, and brought back old concerns that he had long thought that he had buried, feelings of not being good enough, that Ozai was right and Azula was more suited to reign than he.

Obviously it was easier to rebuke those thoughts since he had reconciled with his sister, even if she was still on the way to recovery, but he was starting to be overwhelmed, and his Firelord mask was starting to slip even in the middle of meetings. He always managed to keep it up in the end, but there had been way too many close calls where he was minutes away from hyperventilating in front of everyone, if it had truly happened...let's just say a resurgence of the New Ozai Society might not be the worst thing that could happen.

So he was left searching for a solution to calm his nerves, at first he had remembered Uncle's 'wisdom' about tea and Pai Sho but he quickly put it aside when he realized doing either of those things only made him worry even _more_ and after a few sessions, he was already feeling a pain in his stomach that his physician had attributed to stress.

Next, he tried meditating in the courtyard, it had honestly helped a bit, but it was far from enough to keep the stress from accumulating, so it was more of a stop gap than a solution.

He was left at a loss, not finding a resolution ended up being just another frustration, until one day when he fell asleep during his meditation. Now that might happen more often than Zuko would like to admit, but the hours were long, and meditation wasn't always all that removed from rest, so could anyone really blame him?

That day, rather than a messenger waking him up for another meeting, or a servant telling him that his dinner was ready, he was instead awoken by a small quack, it took a while for Zuko, still half asleep, to identify the source of the noise.

As Zuko discovered, the source of the noise was a small turtleduck that had apparently taken up residence on his lap. Just as he was about to shoo it away to get up, Zuko noticed the poor state of the small animal. The poor thing was clearly underfed and looked lost, he suddenly remembered that the turtleducks typically living around the pond in the courtyard, had left for a colder part of the fire nation for the warmest season, it was rare but not unheard of for a turtleduckling to have been accidentally left behind on such occasions.

Now Zuko could have just ignored the small creature, it would probably figure out how to feed itself in the courtyard, or he could have simply handed it over to virtually anyone in the palace to take care of it, being Firelord had it's perks, one of them being that if you give a random animal to someone, it would immediately be considered a precious pet.

For some reason Zuko did none of things, he simply plucked the turtleduckling from his lap and went to the kitchen. He was not really certain what he could feed it given its current state, but that was an easily solved issue, just asking a few servants answered most of his questions, and one scholar living in the palace was quickly brought in to answer the rest.

Every moment of his free time over the next few days was thus dedicated to nursing the poor animal back to health, he would have called it an act of mercy, Uncle would have called it having a good heart, and Azula would have called it the burden of a soft hearted fool, but in the end, the results were the same.

He really hadn't expected for this random encounter to be the solution to his problem but there was just something about taking care of this turtleduck that soothed him. Seeing it slowly regain it's strength, it's pathetic squawk turning cheerful, and the wary begging turning into blind affection made him feel like he had made the right decision, like he could do something correctly, and that if he could bring it back to it's feet, then maybe he could do that same with his nation.

Sure, it might sound pathetic for the leader of an entire nation to stop himself from panicking and second guessing himself by thinking 'Hey, It turned out okay for the turtleduck, if I did that right, this might just turn out well', but it worked, nothing like saving a small animals from starving and guiding it through every step of it's recovery to make you feel helpful in a concrete way, and being drowned in the affection of a cute little bundle of feathers as reward did wonders for stress too.

So there he was, weeks after all of this, still not really sure of how it had happened despite revisiting his memories.

'I guess it doesn't really matter...' Zuko shrugged, his emotional support turtleduck comfortably settled on his shoulders. '...Could be helpful for Azula though.'

Now that Zuko was doing more than simply keeping his head above water, he had the luxury to pay enough attention to notice that his sister did not seem to be fairing much better than he had. They may have gotten rid of the bad blood between them, but that didn't make Azula's reintegration into a world at peace easy, she was clearly 'lost', without purpose.

He had obviously offered her a place on his council as soon he realized he could trust her, but Azula had refused, citing that she knew nothing about how to rule during peace time, obviously Zuko immediately responded that most aspect really weren't all that different but Azula wouldn't hear it, she didn't feel capable of doing the task, and for all her flaws, Azula wouldn't accept a prestigious position if she couldn't handle the responsibility that came with it.

Her condition had only deteriorated since then, Zuko guessed she could not adjust to the lack of structure in her life. She was too used to the intense pressure of their father's expectation and orders to feel at ease, especially now that she was 'aware' of her own 'weakness' and still had trouble accepting it wouldn't be used against her, even if everyone else wasn't seeing it. She had even stopped her usual fire bending routine and started passing a bit too much time lying in bed for him to not worry, the keyword here being 'lying', not 'sleeping', Zuko wasn't sure if it was better or not.

Either way, his sister abandonning her fire bending practice was a clear red flag to him, even as a child he was aware of Azula's love for it and it had only grown as people recognized her as a genius, giving it up meant the situation might take a turn for the worst.

As he was looking at his sister wandering aimlessly through the palace from his office window, an idea came to him.

"I had planned to leave you in the palace staff's care while I went to visit the Northern Water Tribe, but I guess there's been a change of plan." Zuko spoke to the bird as he turned his head to look at it. "What do you say about helping out my sister a bit?"

The Turtleduck's only response was a slight tilt of its small head, followed by a very confused sounding "Quack".

(X)

Azula had to sigh inwardly, while she was chatting with Ty Lee in one of the numerous hallways within the palace, holding out her little turtleduck for Ty Lee to pet and coo over.

It was not the discussion itself that had caused her lamentation, the conversation itself was admittedly very enjoyable, it was the first one she had managed to share with Ty Lee since her return to the palace, the fact that the discussion was about the feeding habits of turtleducks probably helped a lot. Her past attempts at reconnecting with her old friend having fallen as flat as her then poor choice of small talk topic, nor was holding out the turtleduck causing it either, she was more than used to that at this point.

But no, the source of her apprehension was constantly having to keep an eye on Ty Lee, in case she suddenly got the bright idea to grab the poor critter, and run away to a circus with it. She was a very nice girl, but let us just say that looking at her past relationships, all anyone would see is a long string of broken hearts and missing pets that had a bad habit of resurfacing in whatever circus Ty Lee joined.

While she would not have cared about Ty Lee stealing Zuzu's little supporter back during the war, even two weeks ago to be perfectly honest, but after a while of babysitting him, said little supporter happened to become hers too. There were so many little things to do while taking care of him but Azula had to admit that one by one, those little things had, for the most part, removed the heavy burden on her shoulders.

At first, she was mostly annoyed at its consistent quacking to be fed, taken out to see a bit of sun, and insistence on making her consume those damned drugs he kept bringing to her, which Zuko insisted weren't drugs anymore but just vitamins and stimulant to slowly wean her off her heavier treatment. Having it constantly near her while all she wanted to do is stay in bed and not think about how she'd look to the servants that she had previously banished, or how she'd feel seeing how pathetic and useless her flames now were during her practice, or even what to do if someone tried to talk to her.

'I'll have to _talk_ to Zuko about the pill thing,' Azula thought to herself without missing a beat in her discussion with Ty Lee and nailing the delivery of one of her favorite piece of turtleduck bathing trivia. '...Because I very much doubt that this little turtleduck just developed that habit on its own.'

But after a couple weeks, she was thankful for it. It was far easier walking around without thinking about the servants, when you were focused on feeding the appropriate food and water to make the animal shut up as quickly as possible, her mood also felt a lot better now that she was getting a daily dose of sun instead of being stuck in the dark with nothing but her own reflection in the mirror and her thoughts.

It was also much more convenient to firebend for her own personal pleasure, rather than using it as a display of dominance and power when waiting for the turtleduck to tire from swimming around in the courtyard's pond was the perfect excuse, nor did it hurt that his happy quacks almost sounded like it was cheering her on, which was kind of sad if she thought about it so she took a page out of Zuzu's book and simply didn't.

Even talking to people had _become_ much easier, rather than having to analyze every word and plan in the whole discussion in advance in her head, no longer needing to control what they were talking about, she simply talked about her pet, how cute it was, what it ate, and just let the conversation go from there, a far cry from the verbal sparring matches that she had been conditioned to consider all small talk to be.

Hell, the little quack even managed to get her back into helping her country's government after a bunch of bickering generals and scholars that were arguing about some simple, for her at least, matter that kept disturbing the amphibian's playtime, and by extension her firebending practice, resulting in quick tongue lashing for those fools, and Azula solving the issue before sending them away.

"One more thing to talk to Zuko about once he returns." Azula made a mental note as she brought the turtleduck protectively to her chest as Ty Lee was starting to get a bit too grabby between a couple of quips about how similar Turtleducks were to Vulture-Doves when it came to socializing their young, at least from what she had seen in her time with the circus. "It is possible that he could have a point about peace not changing nearly as much as I thought... War or no, those idiots certainly still need our guidance, it was not as if they had become any smarter because we are at peace!"

The thought of Zuko coming back also came with a bit anxiety. While she had come to love her brother as they worked to put the past behind them, even if neither of them would ever admit it, some things would never change, so his return would mean that she would have to return her little emotional support turtleduck to it's original owner, and she had to admit to herself that she was scared.

She just didn't trust herself not to fall back into her bad habits once it was gone, in fact she didn't really trust herself at all, she hadn't for a long time, and sometime she questioned if she ever really did. It would not be hard to argue that what she actually trusted before was her father and the teachings of her nation, rather than herself after all.

The idea of shutting herself back into her dark room, of losing her fire to her own insecurity and ending up stuck in this prison of her making for the rest of her life sent a shiver down her spine, she really could not let that happen.

But it was not as if she wanted to steal it from her brother, she had been too overwhelmed by her own issues to do anything about it, but she noticed the whispers, the looks, and especially how her brother looked every time he visited her in that jail cell she called her bedroom, it was clear to her that his firelord mask was slipping and he was getting overwhelmed, luckily he got over it on his own, got back on his feet, and even ended up helping her as she struggled on the floor again, another defeat for her she supposed.

Still, it didn't alleviate any of her fear or made the idea of parting with her new pet any easier. It was honestly getting pretty depressing to even think about it so she simply chose to once again take a page out of Zuko's book and stopped thinking about it.

Which was a wise decision, because that's exactly when Ty Lee decided to take advantage of her loosened hold on the turtleduck and strike, snatching the bird and running for it, with an Azula who was seriously rethinking on her resolution to not throw lightning at her friends hot on her heels.

(X)

Things had been pretty hectic since Zuko's return, he wasn't complaining about most of it, sure, Ty Lee tried to steal his pet but it was unsuccessful and she was Ty Lee, that was to be expected. Azula had finally decided to take him up on his offer to become his advisor ...and hopefully not noticing that he had dumped about half of his workload onto her. Her progress has been pretty astonishing, to the point that her doctors had been interested into further researching the effect that a pet could have on a patient's recovery, and for some reason they were really excited about the pill trick he had taught to his turtleduck, that he really should choose a name for at some point...

In fact, Azula had started helping the council even before he came back, he had honestly expected to come back to a giant backlog and them still arguing over the pettiest subject they could find. She had even started firebending again and while he wouldn't admit it, he had really missed seeing her practice.

Most of the changes he was quite happy to see, but there was one thing that was really galling him something fierce: Azula would not stop pretending that the turtleduck is _her_ pet, while he had accepted that behavior from Ty Lee and resigned himself to keeping an eye out for her, he really didn't expect to have to fight off _Azula_ of all people for his pet.

He had expected to come back to her begging him take it back after having been annoyed into getting out of her room for the duration of his trip. He had not expected her to constantly try and steal the turtleduck back to her room, or to go play with it in the courtyard whenever he had his back turned. This left him to work alone in his office or with nothing to pet while discussing matters with his counselors that weren't exactly worth holding a meeting over, and it was driving him mad, though Azula's surprising progress somewhat made up for it.

But that was no a reason for him to just let her have her way and steal his pet, so he just kept stealing it back, which just made her steal it again and make it harder for him to retrieve again, which prompted him to put up his own anti turtleduck theft measures, leading to a never escalating war of attrition between them. The unsaid rule was clear: Whoever gave up on stealing back the turtleduck or didn't manage to get over the other's defense would forfeit all claims to pet ownership.

Zuko really wasn't happy to have to compete for the right to keep his own pet, but some things never changed and all the complaining in the world probably would not make Azula budge on that, she would most likely just pretend she had no idea what he was talking about.

"Seriously, why does she even want it?" questioned Zuko, not really getting any idea of why his sister would be that adamant over stealing his pet "It can't be just to spite me, could it? I was pretty confident we were over that but I'm starting to wonder now..."

Obviously, Ty Lee had not given up either, and came over from time to time to try and get his turtleduck for herself, Zuko was thinking of threatening to give turtleducks to all her sisters, but he was not sure that even that would work, and it was a bit too low of a blow for his taste.

Even now, in the middle of a meeting, the competition was still on, both of them taking great care to keep looking into the other's eyes, while making plans to finally secure the win over the other in a weird effort to try and guess whatever the other was planning, He had no idea why they had started doing that, or gotten that weird notion, but it had been going on for a few meetings and honestly, stopping now would feel like a defeat in and of itself, and Azula seemed to have no difficulty holding eye contact with his glare.

Although, the other members of the council were growing pretty disturbed by the whole thing, even if it didn't negatively impact either of their work, neither Zuko nor Azula would allow their competition to hamper their ability to lead the nation or negatively effect their people, one of his advisors had even taken him aside to talk to him about being 'inappropriate during a meeting' though Zuko didn't really understand what the advisor was implying.

As this epic battle of stares was going on under the disturbed eyes of the council, a little feathered invader decided to make its presence known with a bold war cry:

"Quack"

That little noise was enough for the whole room to turn as one toward the source. Zuko had to stop himself from cooing after seeing that it was none other than his emotional support turtleduck, he hadn't taken it to a meeting before so it was probably getting curious about where he was always going and came to see him.

As he finished those thoughts, Zuko noticed that one of the general on the council seemed to be clearly mistaking his little helper with a random wild animal that had found it's way into the chamber, and was trying catch it to, hopefully, kick it out the room, though obviously Zuko could not let this idiot manhandle his pet.

"Sir, this is my emotional support Turtleduck." Zuko's voice was perfectly calm and full of dignity, he spoke with full authority, a perfect use of his well practiced Firelord voice, though the stereo effect was new ...wait a minute.

As soon as he was hit with this realization, he looked toward the noise to see a Azula just as confused as he was, though going by the look on her face she was quickly coming to the same conclusion.

For a second, it was as if time had a stopped, even the turtleduck did not move, nor make a sound.

The silence was quickly broken by Zuko and Azula collapsing into a fit of laughter in front of a very confused, and honestly scared at this point, council and a bundle of feathers that looked strangely proud of itself.

(X)

It had been a while since that council meeting where Fire-Flake, whom they had finally gotten around to naming, after ample warning from Azula that she'd rescind her moratorium on fratricide if he tried to name it 'Honor', had showed its adorable beak and reduced Zuzu and her into laughing wrecks.

That brief moment had allowed them to put their little fight behind them. It was funny really, she had thought Zuko had gotten over his issue and was just keeping the turtleduck out of gratitude and habit but didn't really need it anymore, so it would do no harm to take Fire-Flake with her from time to time and had thought of Zuko stealing it as a petty act and a bit of an insult.

While he had no idea that she had gotten attached to the pet, and thought she took it just to spite him or as some kind of challenge, both to his authority and his status as a pet owner, leading to that whole disastrous competition that, thankfully, came to an end after their little duet line and nice talk in private about how their pet had helped them get better, and why they had acted as they did. It was honestly pretty embarrassing.

But it had done wonders for how they saw each other, and now they were Fire-Flake's happy co-owners.

This new co ownership had its downsides for certain, but the upsides easily outweighed them. First of all, a united front went a long way to discourage Ty Lee, who seemed to have temporarily given up, probably to prepare some nefarious plot, she was a friend, but she would have never guessed that Ty Lee could be so devious when she really wanted.

Another upside was that it opened the door to one of her favorite games: messing with people, though Zuko's involvement meant that said 'messing with' was very different from her usual plans.

She would never forget the old admiral's face as she stood with Fire-Flake on her head for a whole meeting, her and Zuko acting as if nothing was out of the ordinary while the rest didn't dare say anything about it.

And Zuko had his own hour glory when he had Fire Flake sign every official document for him, as if it were a machine to apply his royal seal automatically, never once breaking character. Azula had to hand it to him; Zuzu was really good at teaching tricks to their pet.

In fact, they took him to pretty much every meeting they could now, he was currently on her shoulder at the moment, doing so helped to keep the rest of them on their toes.

But that didn't mean everything was going well, apparently some wannabe Dai Li and New Ozai Society had started to fight each other at the border between the fire nation and the earth kingdom, meaning that Zuko had to run himself ragged, going from diplomatic meeting to diplomatic meeting and often leaving the palace while she had to stay and root out any support those pseudo rebels had in the court.

The situation was finally calming down, but it was still taking an heavy toll on him, which was why she was currently watching as her brother was slowly failing apart in the middle of a meeting. His breath getting shallow, he was fumbling a bit on his words, and she was sure he was about to start stuttering. She had no idea what she could do to help.

Then Azula remembered Fire-Flake on her shoulder and got an idea, she casually stood and walked to Zuzu before dropping the small animal on his head before going back to her chair and sitting down, without giving any indication that she thought she did anything special, and to his credit, neither did Zuko.

The effect was small, but it worked and he greatly improved as the meeting continued his breathing slowly calmed to normal levels and he found his Firelord voice returning after a while, he even threw a discreet smile her way that she pretended to not notice.

As they wrapped up the meeting and the royal siblings prepared to go spar for a bit, both Zuko and Azula had to admit, Fire-Flake was their emotional support Turtleduck but maybe he wasn't their _only_ emotional support.

It might have been their imagination but Fire-Flake looked extremely self satisfied as they admitted that to themselves.


End file.
